The Five Elements (9 page)

He swam half the length of the shop-lined street, wondering if he'd make better progress on the rooftops, when he spotted an alley he knew was a shortcut. He recognized the presence of second story windows only as he swam past them. Seeing one half-open, he stopped and considered climbing in to get out of the water, if only for a brief respite. But just as he was about to grab hold of the sill, he saw a flickering come from the opposite end of the alley. The light slid across Aaron's field of vision, too smooth to be held by a fellow swimmer. A boat, then. Aaron abandoned the window and the desire to rest. Instead he swam for the light. Blinking his eyes to clear away the sting of the water's saltiness, a long craft came into focus. Men sitting along the vessel's length dipped oars into the water, unaware of Aaron's presence as they propelled the craft forward.

Aaron licked lips blistered and dry with salt. His throat felt no better. When he spoke, his voice was a croak. He called out once, then again, louder. One of the men heard him. He reigned in his oar and looked about, finally pointing in Aaron's direction. The others lifted their oars as well, and the skiff slowed. Aaron heard them speaking, but their words were indiscernible, their accents strange and unfamiliar. That, and their appearance—too squat and short-limbed for men now that he looked closer—gave Aaron pause. As the boatmen ceased their chatter, the course of the strange boat changed and, with a unified effort, was propelled into the alley towards him. Aaron remained stationary only as long as it took for him to see brown leather and armor. And weapons. Knives, swords, axes, and worse, barrel chests, wild hair, and tangled beards. Aaron started treading backwards, but not before seeing a gleam of hunger in the lead oarsman's eyes as if he'd just found his next meal.

Aaron spun around and fled. Exhaustion was forgotten as brutish cries echoed from the walls. Panicked, Aaron's strokes made more splash than forward progress as he gauged the distance to the alley's other side. At least on the open street he might have some chance of hiding. Here, in this narrow alley, there was nothing. Except the windows. Aaron returned to the one he knew was open, grabbing hold of the ledge while trying to shove it open enough to slide through. Numb fingers struggled, and he slipped into the water once more. He choked out the fetid brew that spilled into his mouth and tried again. He'd kicked his shoes off long ago, so it was his bare toes that found purchase. As an elbow gained the ledge, he used his hand to push the window up enough to fit through. He balanced on the window's frame for a moment before he landed inside with a crash onto a hardwood floor. The room was dark and quiet. Aaron sighed despite the approaching danger. Above all the room was utterly and completely dry. No time for rest now though. Already he heard the boat scraping the wall outside and the strange-accented voices. Aaron scuttled away on hands and knees, turning to huddle against the backend of a closed door just in time to see the flare from a torch poke through the window and into the room. Behind the light was a gruesome face, tattooed and snarling. Fire red eyes locked with Aaron's. A chuckle erupted from blackened lips.

With one hand at his vest, Aaron stood. Not knowing or caring what alchemical vial he grabbed hold of, he unstoppered the first he found and, with a swing of his arm, splashed its contents across that glaring visage. There was an immediate yelp of pain and a quick shuffling back out the window. Not waiting to see what monster poked its head through next, Aaron ran from the room. But legs already pushed past their limit were heavy and slow. He'd not gone far when he heard the boatmen behind him, shrieking for his blood as they tumbled through the doorway in pursuit. Their presence pushed Aaron to new heights. It was that or die. At the end of the hall, he stumbled through an open door and slammed it shut behind him. Through another window he saw an estate wall, collapsed, the rubble forming a sort of path onto the adjoining grounds. He leapt for it as more shouts sounded behind. Landing heavily, he forced himself to keep moving over the rocky fragments and onto the estate's grounds. He found a door, smashed in. From within, screams, and the sounds of metal on metal. Aaron turned and, seeing that the boatmen already made their way along the rubble path, bolted through the open doorway. From the base of a stair he saw more of the squat, armored creatures moving with weapons in hand from one room to another. The screams went silent. Aaron did not stop. He swept through the entry and into a kitchen beyond before he reentered the darkness outside. The ground here was damp, but free of debris, ending at a wall where Aaron thankfully found a hole to slip through. Beyond was an estate garden. His breathing came in great heaves as he ran. Despite his best efforts, he felt the presence of his pursuers narrowing the distance between them. There was a rear stair he stumbled up and a long, sconce-lit hallway. The first corridor led to another. He took every turn he could, plunging through every door that opened. Anything to throw off his pursuers. None of it seemed to make any difference. Always, there were the grunts and shouts of the boatmen drawing closer and closer.

Aaron saw no one else. Nothing looked familiar. The rough wood floor beneath his bare feet changed to stone, then back to wood, but smooth and polished this time. Another passage and his feet touched marble and long, plush rugs. Everything was dry. Oil lamps hanging from ornamental chandeliers provided abundant light. Sweeping past a row of mirrors and flowing tapestries, his flight came to an abrupt halt at a black, iron-clad door. The door was closed and so tall Aaron had to bend at the waist to take in its full height. From its other side he heard the clash of metal on metal. It didn't matter. One glance over his shoulder and Aaron put his full weight into it. The door opened so smoothly that Aaron found himself stumbling half a dozen footfalls beyond its threshold before he could stop himself. Once he had, he froze in disbelief at the sight before him.

Here was a world consumed by fire, smoke, and the chaos of battle. Soldiers of Norwynne armed with sword and shield fought against a host of axe and hammer wielding raiders while hellish light from a dozen conflagrations consumed furniture, tapestries, and wall and ceiling beams. By the light of so many fires, Aaron finally recognized his pursuers for what they were. Dwarves. Though they outnumbered the men, such advantage seemed unnecessary, for their attack was pure savagery, without mercy, and with a skill Aaron had scarce seen in the daily drills of the keep's soldiery. The number of dead was telling. Few were dwarven.

Aaron wanted to turn around, to run through the great doorway, slam the door, and forget he'd ever looked on this nightmare. But he knew there was no safety in that direction either. He took a moment to square his shoulders against the chaos, then he plunged into it. Heat and smoke embraced him as the thrust of sword and the swish of axe and hammer melded into a symphony unlike any he'd heard before. He picked a haphazard path through the groups of combatants. So occupied were they with their own life and death struggle that he was hardly noticed by friend or foe. Aaron had no idea where he was going. He knew only that he needed to keep moving. Now, he
had
to keep moving as he was forced to dodge a retreating soldier then dive past a dwarven axe that might have split him in half. Direction was lost as the way quickly became a maze, with ever-shifting byways and corridors made up of fire and smoke and battling combatants. The moment a lane opened, Aaron dashed down it, but it was only to find the way blocked, forcing him to alter course again. Finally a space opened and he darted for the gap, but just as fast stopped dead in his tracks. Not because the way narrowed or closed up, but because standing at the end of that lane was a real monster. Taller and thicker than any of the others, it was a dwarf who surely was the king of perdition, for
he burned
. Flame not only surrounded him, it swathed him, his entire being ablaze with red-orange hellfire. Far from contorting his body in agony, he delighted in it, his wide eyes and face lit with pleasure, for the flame did not consume his black hair, skin, or the ragtag swaddling of furs and hardened leather that was his armor. The whole of him burned so bright it hurt to look upon him. There was only one part of this dwarven demon affected by the smoking flame. His hand, though it did not burn, was a blackened ruin, the fingers charred and mangled, the hand itself, useless. In his other hand was a bloodied, double-edged axe, blazing with fire and exuding black smoke as it danced with a foe Aaron recognized as Vuller, Lord of Norwynne Keep. Vuller wore a mail shirt and loose bottoms only. His sword was held in one bare hand and his shield in the other. Others—those who'd rallied to their lord's aide—were scattered around him, dead. Lord Vuller stood alone.

Aaron turned and ran. He made it half a dozen paces before he tripped and fell. He rolled to his back, tried to get up, but he suddenly didn’t have the strength. He was done. Done running. Done trying—and failing—to save anyone. Even himself. Everything was gone now. Everyone was dead. Elsanar, Rion, Shanna. He wanted to cry for them, but the heat and flames had dried his eyes past the point of tears. Aaron waited, for the flames and the battle and the flaming axe that he knew, in the end, must come for him too. Staring heavenward, he waited for any one of them, or perhaps all of them.

Instead, he saw a dwarven raider falling from the sky. Or, rather, falling from a balcony, high up. Ragged beard, bulging eyes, and arms flailing so wildly the dwarf must have thought them wings. Surrounding him was a cloud of shattered glass. Fascinated despite his fatigue, Aaron studied the dwarf's trajectory, wondering where he might land as both dwarf and the swarm of glass drew nearer and nearer until—

Aaron rolled away, just managing to put his back to the glass that fell on him like rain. The dwarf impacted the floor with a thump of flesh and the crunch of bone. A gurgling came from the dwarf's mouth, then nothing. Aaron didn't turn to look at him. Instead, his glance shot up to the balcony. It was without balustrade, lined instead from end-to-end with a sheet of muraled glass now punctured at its center. Aaron estimated its height at four stories. High enough that he couldn't believe anyone would jump that distance willingly until he saw the shadow of a man, not a dwarf, materialize within the glass's shattered opening. The man stood there not even a second before he jumped. No wings sprouted from his back, no sorcery slowed his fall. Aaron saw only the vague outline of an expressionless face, a long jacket that billowed about him, and the glint of steel in either hand. Then the vision of the man's fall was blotted out by the wicked grin of one of Aaron's dwarven pursuers. With a sharp intake of breath and axe already held high, the dwarf let the weapon fall. Death had come.

But not for Aaron.

The dwarf's mouth went wide as the point-end of a sword poked out from his chest. The axe fell from his hand. He groaned only once as he crumbled to the ground, dead. Standing over the slain dwarf was the man who'd jumped from the balcony. Aaron knew him. Stark white eyes. Blue-black skin that shimmered in the flicker of flames. A sword, covered in blood, that Aaron had held in his own hands only hours before.

Master Ensel Rhe Alon.

The eslar paid Aaron no heed as he turned on the dwarves closest, showing them no mercy. His khatesh flicked out like a razor tongue, piercing, cutting, and slashing, while a dagger in his other hand claimed its fair share of victims. He was a whirlwind of steel and death, moving so quickly that nothing touched him. In moments, the area about Aaron was cleared. Then the eslar made straight for Lord Vuller, who remained locked in combat with the wielder of the terrible, flaming axe. Others tried to stop his approach: a screaming dwarf with a knee-length beard leaped out from amongst the smoke with warhammer held high. Ensel Rhe split him down the middle. Another came at him low, crouching with teeth bared and short axes held in either hand. The eslar batted the blades aside, smashing a booted foot into the dwarf's face. Two more took his place almost immediately. One swung a hammer at Master Rhe, the other stabbed with a short spear. Ensel Rhe let the latter jab past him as he leaned away from the swing of the hammer. Then he released his knife and grasped the shaft of the spear, holding it and its wielder in thrall while he dispatched the other attacker with a slash to the throat. A quick jerk of the spear to draw the other closer, then he too met the same fate. The eslar was only yards from Lord Vuller now, but then it no longer mattered. Vuller, eyes gone wild and mouth open in desperation, raised a shield that already burned with small flames where one side of it had been sliced off. The dwarf, flaming axe held high, let out a great barrel of a laugh as his weapon fell. It sliced through the center of Vuller's shield as if it were parchment, cleaving through the lord's arm, the mail protecting his body, and, finally, the flesh beneath. Vuller fell dead without a sound.

In that moment, the battle was lost. Soldiers across the great hall, who'd not seen a battle like this in their lifetimes and who had just now witnessed their lord fall, turned and ran. Some dropped weapons and shields, others used them to cut a path through flame and smoke or to knock burning debris aside. The dwarves took advantage of the panic, running them down one-by-one and showing no mercy.

Master Rhe was oblivious. His stride never slackened as he neared the dwarf with the burning axe. The dwarf turned to meet him with a grin full of rotted and broken teeth. One hand lightly held his burning, smoking axe. The other, with fingers stiff and blackened, hung at his side. No words were wasted as the dwarf greeted the eslar with a swing of his axe meant to cut him in half at the waist. The dwarf was fast, but his speed was nothing next to Master Rhe, who avoided the attack and slashed at the dwarf in the same motion. Hell-wielder shrugged the wound off, wielding his axe in a return stroke that left flame and smoke in its wake and cloaked just enough of Master Rhe's movement from Aaron that when the smokescreen dissipated there was blood streaming from the dwarf's neck. Thick-fingers did nothing to stop the blood from gushing forth.